From 1987 to 1994, Epstein was a board member of the New York Academy of Art, a private university in Lower Manhattan focused on graduate-level education combining, as per the Academy’s website, “intensive technical training in the fine arts with active critical discourse.” In 1995, he met Maria Farmer, a 25-year-old aspiring artist and student at the Academy who, a year later, reported to the New York City Police Department and the FBI that she and her 16-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and his close friend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell has been accused by Maria Farmer and other victims of facilitating and participating in Epstein’s abuse and assault of young women. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Epstein’s crimes.)
In 2019, the New York Times reported that Maria Farmer met Epstein at a gallery show tied to her graduation, after which Epstein “called her to offer her a job acquiring art on his behalf, and later managing the entrance to a townhouse he was renovating.” Farmer said that, at the time, she told Eileen Guggenheim, then dean and current board chair of the Academy whom Farmer says introduced her to Epstein, about his assaultive behavior. (The Times article states that “Ms. Guggenheim said in an interview that the details she was aware of at the time did not rise to a level that would require intervention.”) Painter Eric Fischl, a mentor of sorts for the artist, has said he remembers Farmer calling him about a physical encounter with Epstein: “I just kept telling Maria, ‘You’ve got to get out of there. You’ve got to get out of there,’ ” Fischl told the Times.
Stuart Pivar, cofounder of the New York Academy of Art and a noted collector, gave an interview published in 2019 by Mother Jones in which he said Epstein had been his “best pal for decades” until he learned of the allegations. Noting an exchange with Farmer that served as a turning point in his relationship with Epstein, Pivar said, “She started to tell me about some terrible thing, too terrible to utter, having to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And then a minute later, he shows up. And I began to put two and two together. And I realized that something was going on, which I didn’t know about. And at that point, I knew that he had a different life that I was not aware of.”
Around this time, the Office of the President at the New York Academy of Art established a committee to “formalize a protocol for how art collectors can and should interact with the Academy’s student artists,” according to the school. In a statement to ARTnews, the institution said, “The New York Academy of Art is deeply shocked and saddened by what one of our graduates, Maria Farmer, went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and we are truly sorry for what happened to Maria. Jeffrey Epstein was introduced to the Academy via former board member Stuart Pivar, who left the Academy’s board acrimoniously and has had no relationship with the Academy since 1994.”
The New York Academy of Art said it does not have on-site access to financial records before 1999, but from 1999 to 2014 Epstein made a single contribution of $30,000 and purchased tickets to fundraising events.
